{{{AUTHOR INTERVIEW}}} Lee Matthew Goldberg, author of The Mentor @LeeMatthewG

About the Author

Lee Matthew Goldberg’s novel THE MENTOR is forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press in June 2017 and has been acquired by Macmillan Entertainment. The French edition will be published by Editions Hugo. His debut novel SLOW DOWN is out now. His pilot JOIN US was a finalist in Script Pipeline’s TV Writing Competition. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his fiction has also appeared in The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, Essays & Fictions, The New Plains Review, Verdad Magazine, BlazeVOX, and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series. He lives in New York City.

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Q: Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your book has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning? Where did you come up with the idea to write your book?

The inspiration for my novel The Mentor began with my editor Brendan Deneen at Macmillan. He was looking for someone to write an idea he had that was pitched as Cape Fear set in the publishing world. I wanted to add a literary bent to it as well so we conceived the plot of a professor who contacts a former student of his, who’s now a book editor at a prestigious house. The editor is glad to be in touch with his mentor, but when he reads the book it’s not only horribly written but depraved as well and reminds him of a cold case from when the two were at college together where a girl he dated went missing, never to be found. So he starts thinking that his mentor might have had something to do with her disappearance.

Q: How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers?

I wrote this book very fast in under a year. The plot moves quickly and I had outlined about 80% beforehand so the biggest difficulty was fleshing out the characters and bringing them to life. The first book I wrote was not outlined, but now I figure out most things before I start writing since it saves a lot of time in the end.

Q: Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?

Thomas Dunne Books and St. Martin’s Press is the publisher. My agent Sam Hiyate at The Rights Factory made the deal happen so it’s all due to him.

Q: Is there anything that surprised you about getting your first book published?

It happened very fast. I was pitched as the writer for the story, I wrote an outline and in about two weeks we had a deal.

Q: What other books (if any) are you working on and when will they be published?

I’m working a few books right now but none have been sold…yet. I have two other thrillers that are part of a trilogy along with a sci-fi book with a Twin Peaks feel to it and two Young Adult novels. Most of them are already done.

Q: What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?

Despite the gruesome subject, it’s really funny in parts. I wanted humor to balance out some of the gore.

Q: Finally, what message (if any) are you trying to get across with your book?

It’s a satire mostly and a comment on the violence that people crave in media: from books, to TV, to films, to the state of the world and the news right now with one chaotic and crazy event after the next. We seem to all be foaming at the mouth for more and more.

Q: Thank you again for this interview! Do you have any final words?

Thanks so much! I hope everyone enjoy my new novel The Mentor. If you’re looking for a twisty thriller with a literary bent, definitely check it out. Since summer is here, it’s the perfect kind of book to bring to the beach.

And feel free to follow me at Leematthewgoldberg.com with links to my Twitter, Goodreads and Facebook Author Page.

About the Book:

Title: THE MENTOR

Author: Lee Matthew Goldberg

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press

Pages: 336

Genre: Thriller / Suspense / Mystery

Kyle Broder has achieved his lifelong dream and is an editor at a major publishing house.

When Kyle is contacted by his favorite college professor, William Lansing, Kyle couldn’t be happier. Kyle has his mentor over for dinner to catch up and introduce him to his girlfriend, Jamie, and the three have a great time. When William mentions that he’s been writing a novel, Kyle is overjoyed. He would love to read the opus his mentor has toiled over.

Until the novel turns out to be not only horribly written, but the most depraved story Kyle has read.

After Kyle politely rejects the novel, William becomes obsessed, causing trouble between Kyle and Jamie, threatening Kyle’s career, and even his life. As Kyle delves into more of this psychopath’s work, it begins to resemble a cold case from his college town, when a girl went missing. William’s work is looking increasingly like a true crime confession.

Lee Matthew Goldberg's The Mentor is a twisty, nail-biting thriller that explores how the love of words can lead to a deadly obsession with the fate of all those connected and hanging in the balance.

PRAISE FOR THE MENTOR:

From Booklist - A junior editor at a Manhattan publisher reunites with his college mentor with disastrous results in Goldberg's second thriller (after Slow Down, 2015). Kyle Broder has just acquired a probable best-seller for Burke & Burke publishing when he hears from his former literature professor, William Lansing, who pitches the still-unfinished opus he’s been working on for 10 years. Lansing’s book is not only badly written, it’s also disturbing, featuring a narrator literally eating the heart of the woman he loves. Lansing turns vengeful when his "masterpiece" is rejected, but Broder’s concerns about his mentor are dismissed both at home and at work: Broder’s girlfriend considers Lansing charming, and a rival editor feigns interest in Lansing’s book. Broder revisits his college and delves more deeply into the cold case of a missing ex-girlfriend, and as the plot darkens and spirals downward, it’s unclear who will be left standing. The compelling plot is likely to carry readers with a high enough tolerance for gore to the final twist at the end.